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"I’ve only one bedroom, but you’re welcome to a sofa"

Billy shook his head "This amazes me"

"That I’m hospitable?"

"No That I’m Am;"

"Art transforms, Billy"

"Will I feel different when I wake up?"

"No," Valis said "You’ve , those choices"

"They gave you an opportunity to understand your potential"

"Those sofas look so clean, and I’arded"

As they rose simultaneously from their chairs, Billy pulled the Mace from under his T-shirt

Apparently surprised, Valis tried to turn his face away

They were only ten feet apart, and Billy sprayed him in the eyes Blinded, Valis pawed for the revolver on the table but knocked it to the floor

Billy ducked past hi to find hi around behind the freak, Billy hammered the back of his skull with the butt of the revolver, then hit hirace, Valis crashed to the floor on his face Billy went to his knees to be sure the freak was out He was

Valis wore his shirt tucked in his pants Billy tugged it loose and pulled it over the ether His purpose was not to blindfold Valis but to forun clipped it Billy wanted to avoid getting bloodstains on the carpet

Chapter 72

Billy stretched his hands into the latex gloves He got to work The bedroom was even lowed and lustered, a jewel box of old-plated fixtures

Embedded at a slant in the top of a ribbon-maple bedroom desk, a touchsensitive screen provided control of the electronic systems from music to security

Apparently, these controls had to be accessed by entering a code Fortunately, Valis had left the syste it to put up the tambour panels and put down the steel blinds at the s

All controls featured idiot-proof labels Billy unlocked the front door In the living room, Valis was still liged Valis out of the living roo area and kitchen, into the cockpit He tumbled him down the steps and out of the motor home

No more than an hour of darkness remained The slim sickle moon now harvested stars beyond the western horizon

He had parked the Explorer between the tent and the hway No traffic passed

He dragged Valis to the SUV

No one lived nearby The tavern across the highould be deserted for hours yet

When Valis had fired the shot into the armchair, there had been no one to hear

Billy opened the tailgate He unfolded one of the quilted uised poor Ralph Cottle’s tarp-wrapped body He sround, Valis twitched He began to ue than with an exhaustion of the es, but one thing does not change However you disguise it, this thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil

With another blanket, Billy knelt beside the renowned artist Thrusting the revolver into those quilted folds, using the rounds in the freak’s chest

He dared not wait to see if this tiun had been heard Iround and rolled the deadthe corpse into the Explorer proved more difficult than he expected Valis was heavier than scrawny Ralph Cottle

If so Billy, he would have had in camera a classic piece of macabre comedy This was one of those moments when he wondered about God; didn’t doubt His existence, just wondered about Hiate and returned to the h the padded ared the wall paneling Billy tried to track it from there

Because his father and mother had been shot with the 38, forensic profiles of the revolver existed He didn’t think there was a high likelihood that a match would be made, but he didn’t intend to take any chances

In a fewunder a coffee table He pocketed it

Police would recognize the hole in the arunfire They would know that a weapon had been discharged; and there was nothing to be done about that

They would not knoever, whether it had been fired at Valis or by him Without blood, they would not be able to deduce to who slowly in a full circle, casting histhe short tiloves, he’d touched any surface that could be fingerprinted No The place was clean He left the steel blinds shut He left the tambour panels raised to expose the collection of faces and hands

He did not close the door when he stepped out of the lamorous crew of artists and artisans No traffic appeared on the highway during the time that he drove away from the motor home, out of the meadow, and onto the pavement What patterns his tires had imprinted in the dust, if they had imprinted any, would be obliterated when the crew arrived in a few hours

Chapter 73

Once more to the lava pipe, this ti the same brush as before

While Billy reed wound of an appropriately bloody dawn opened along the contours of the mountains in the east

A prayer didn’t feel appropriate

As though his specific gravity were greater than those of the other three cadavers, Valis seery shaft than had the dead who preceded him

When the sounds of the body’s descent faded into silence, Billy said,

"Older and more experienced, my ass" Then he remembered to drop Lanny’s wallet into the pipe, and he replaced the lid

As the night futilely resisted the early purple light, Billy parked the Explorer on the yard behind Lanny’s garage He let himself into the house This was Thursday, only the second of Lanny’s two days off No one was likely to wonder about hi for hi any additional evidence in the wake of Billy’s previous visit, Billy decided to search the house once an upstairs, ue, and by the ti incrilass froloves, he was unconcerned about leaving prints

Thirst quenched, he rinsed the glass, dried it on a dishtowel, and returned it to the cabinet froht

He suspected that he had missed a detail that had the power to undo hiaze had traveled over so its i room once more, he circled the sofa on which Valis had propped Ralph Cottle’s corpse No stains marred the furniture or the carpet around it

Billy took up the cushions to see if anything froht have fallen between theued by a disquieting feeling that he had overlooked so, he sat down to brood Because he was a h of weariness sat cross-legged on the floor

He had just killed arather like a man, but he could still be concerned about the parlor upholstery He ree

This contradiction struck hihed, the funnier his fussiness about the upholstery seehter, aerous laughter, that it could unravel the carefully tied knot of his equilibrium He stretched out on the carpet, flat on his back, and took long deep breaths to calhter relented, he breathed less deeply, and somehow he allowed himself to fall into sleep

Chapter 74

Billy woke disoriented For a s of chairs and sofas all around hiht that he had fallen asleep in a hotel lobby, and he ement had been to leave him undisturbed

Then ripped the arm of the sofa with his left hand That was a mistake The nail wound was inflamed He cried out and almost fell, but didn’t

The day beyond the curtained s looked fiercely bright and well advanced

When he consulted his atch, he saw that it was 5:02 in the afternoon He had slept almost ten hours

Panic flew, and his heart druht his unexplained absence must have made him the primary suspect in the disappearance of Valis

Then he remembered that he had called in sick for a second day No one was expecting him to be anywhere And no one knew he had any connection whatsoever to the dead artist

If the police were eager to find anyone, they were searching for Valis himself, to ask him pointed questions about the contents of the jars in his living roolass out of the cabinet He filled it fro in the pockets of his jeans, he found two Anacins and took the drink He also sed one tablet of Cipro and a Vicodin

For apassed Maybe all these medications would interact in a mortal fashion and drop him dead between one step and another, but at least he wouldn’t puke

He was no longer troubled by the feeling that heevidence in this house That fear had been a sy his precautions, he knew that he had not